“Let me try to bring some clarity to this deliberate confusion,” [Muskie] said. Democrats wanted security against lawlessness too, but Democrats also thought you deserved economic security. The Republicans? “They oppose your interests” and “really believe that if they can make you afraid enough or angry enough, you can be tricked into voting against yourself.”[…] The debate wasn’t between right and left, but between “the politics of fear and the politics of trust. One says: You are encircled by monstrous dangers. Give us power over your freedom so we may protect you. The other says: The world is a baffling & hazardous place, but it can be shaped to the will of men… “
Ehrlichmann added that, after all, “Politics is the art of polarization“.
For those of you too young to remember, Muskie would go on to lose the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972 for, essentially, being branded by the media as a girly-man.
All else is commentary.
jurassicpork
And Eagleton was a psycho, blah blah blah. It’s amazing how easily we get diverted from some of the most pressing issues of the day. Hell, if Rove were around 150 years ago, he would’ve made a lot of hay over the fact that Abe Lincoln allegedly suffered from depression. Then we would’ve had little Steven Douglas during the Civil War.
Anyway, speaking of Lincoln, I have some potential good news and bad news. Good news: I may have a book deal from Simon and Schuster. The bad news: By May 1st, I could become the Lincoln Author, writing books out my car.
Bob Loblaw
So, what’s the over/under on posts before stuckinred starts talking about Vietnam again this week?
Linda Featheringill
About the time of this election the thought occurred to me that “The bad guys always win.”
Maybe “always” is too big a word. But still . . . .
PurpleGirl
Ed Muskie defended his wife and cried… girly man. The press announcement/defending of his wife (Jane) occurred during a snow storm. Were they tears or melting snow? But he was emotional, not calm and rational as was his reputation.
licensed to kill time
The excerpts from Muskie’s speech that Rick quoted could be given today and be just as valid. I was particularly struck by this:
I had just read that speech out loud to my SO right before I came here.
Anne Laurie
@Bob Loblaw: The Vietnam War was featured in these chapters, almost as prominently as in the last few, so I would certainly welcome Stuckinred’s contributions.
Svensker
@Bob Loblaw:
Yeah, because Vietnam had so little to do with the Nixon years. ?
Bill Murray
@jurassicpork: I doubt Douglas’ election would have precipitated a Civil War.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anne Laurie: Yes, it is rather hard to separate Vietnam from the other things going on at this time. I was in elementary school and I remember seeing it on TV and hearing my parents and their friends talking about it.
ETA: Muskie did cry, right?
/snark
PurpleGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: I did a quick Google before submitting my comment to make sure I was remembering correctly.
licensed to kill time
In these times of wars being fought by enlistees and not shown in graphic detail nightly on your teevee machine, I imagine it is hard to understand how Vietnam loomed over everything at the time.
It was, to quote our VP in another context “A big fucking deal”.
Svensker
@PurpleGirl:
I remember that well. However, it was only today that I learned that Muskie was responding to a Nixon “dirty tricks” fake letter that claimed Muskie’s wife said nasty things about French-Canadians and used drugs. I don’t remember that revelation making the headlines that Muskie’s crying did.
Omnes Omnibus
@PurpleGirl: I wonder how the Orange Man would have fared in 1971-72. Of course, according to William Manchester, Churchill was prone to blubbering at sappy movies, so who knows?
MikeJ
One of the favourite adages of the right is “well, the world isn’t fair.”
I don’t remember who it was in what piece of fiction I was reading or watching, but I recall the response of, “the world is what we make it.” Which always seemed right to me.
Nicole
I used to, as part of my job, talk to people about zoos, and how, I think, one reason boredom is such an issue with captive animals is that in the wild, they’re usually two or three steps away from starvation, and, if an herbivore, possibly only a few steps away from a predator- that they never get bored because a life in the wild is must, by necessity, be a life lived largely in fear. I think fear is, perhaps, the most primal of all emotions, and so it’s very easy for politicians to sway people using it.
Omnes Omnibus
@MikeJ: I am going to be Broderesque and suggest that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. yes, the world isn’t fair, but, with some effort, we can (and should) make it less unfair.
stuckinred
Wow, a preemptive strike from a total dickhead on the ultimate Dickhead thread. I am honored.
Omnes Omnibus
@stuckinred: Tricky or Agnew?
Omnes Omnibus
This statement was not worth saying twice.
Linda Featheringill
@Nicole:
So you’re saying that fear will trump reason? And suspicion of the other will overpower enlightened self interest?
Jay C
Dunno: it’s likely that Nixon would have won reelection in 1972 anyway – although probably not by landslide margins – even if Muskie had been on the Dem ticket, rather than McGovern. Put simply, there were few reasons for change.
On the GOP side, the economy was doing OK again after the 1970 recession; there were few “social” crises in the offing, and vitally, Nixon had (to all intents and purposes) wound down the Vietnam War: at least to the point where constant casualties were no longer a factor in the voters’ face every week. Moreover, he was seen as having done it “with honor”, and – more importantly – without being seen as conceding anything to the anti-war movement: which was still easy to stereotype as disloyal, unwashed hippie radical “bums” (in Nixon’s term).
By contrast, the anti-war bloc was seen (correctly, btw) as having taken over the Democratic Party machinery and engineered Sen. McGovern’s nomination; as his main constituency (incorrectly), and done so in the usual “Dems in Disarray” fashion. It pretty much ensured that the Democrats’ candidate in 1972 would, in effect, be running on 1970’s issues; and still carrying 1968’s baggage. The Eagleton fiasco was just icing on the cake.
stuckinred
@Omnes Omnibus: Loblaw
Nicole
@Linda Featheringill: I know. In the Obvious Army, I attained the rank of Captain.
Anne Laurie
@stuckinred: Hi, SiR!
PurpleGirl
I didn’t remember why Muskie had cried and the circumstances surrounding the episode, just that he had cried and that was a bad thing.
Democrats can’t show emotion, they get made fun of when they do. Dukakis also had problems with the emotion thing.
As to Vietnam: it was so pervasive in everything. Young guys got drafted, or they got deferments to attend college and become teachers and if they failed college they got drafted, young men enlisted so they could pick what they wanted to do instead of being Army grunts, etc. The only time I remember my father crying was the night before my brother reported to the Air Force after he enlisted (having failed out of college). I had friends in college who joined ROTC so they could have better choices. The war and military service was on everyone’s mind at some point.
After the lottery was implemented, I had a friend who had a high lottery number and was drafted by the Italian army because he still had his Italian citizenship. I forget the details but he never did return to Italy or join the military there. It was soooo different from the contemporary conditions.
Omnes Omnibus
@Linda Featheringill: Can, not must.
stuckinred
@Anne Laurie: “Sir”, whoa, you really know how to hurt a guy!
Batocchio
Great quotation to highlight, Anne Laurie. And it was David Broder who wrote the “crying” story, which apparently was a lie , and even Broder later expressed doubt over it:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/born-yesterday-by-digby-robert-novak.html
http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh112807.shtml
The thing that keeps striking me re-reading Nixonland is how the Nixonland gang kept pleading for civility while being nasty and divisive. The most recent parallel is what Krugman and BJ has covered quite a bit this past week: David Brooks and co. whining about Paul Ryan’s fee-fees when Ryan submitted a fraudulent, cruel, magic fairy dust plan – but they didn’t say jack about the GOP’s lies about death panels. Qualitative analysis and fact-checking takes time that Cokie Roberts doesn’t want to spend! Same as it ever was…
licensed to kill time
@Nicole: Fear.This reminds me of the theory quoted on page 520 from the book by sociologist Philip Slater, The Pursuit of Loneliness: American Culture at the Breaking Point.
This same sentiment seems to drive a lot of the Tea Peeps fearful frenzy today. The sense something is wrong with the system, but direct that fear and fury at the Other.
Anne Laurie
Thot experiment: Since “liberal” has been coopted by the Uztabe tribe (i.e., conservatives without the courage of their convictions), and “progressive” has become a scare-word among the
poo-flinging shriekersKool Kids, maybe it’s time to reclaim Radlib (radical liberal) as a term of honor?Omnes Omnibus
@Anne Laurie: God, don’t call him sir; it’ll just cause him to complain about officers. No one wants that.
@PurpleGirl: I remember my father’s younger brother looking into joining the Air Force because his number was right on the brink. He didn’t join and he didn’t get drafted.
stuckinred
@Anne Laurie: I think it was Radiclib?
stuckinred
@Omnes Omnibus: Complain, I think you mean reflect. :)
Anne Laurie
@stuckinred: And here I thought I’d discovered your sly tongue-in-cheek…
Nicole
@licensed to kill time:
That reminds me of a funny story my uncle told me- he took his horse out to his paddock one morning recently, and went back for the second horse (mine). In the time it took him to get the second horse, the first one had spotted a white box that had blown onto the property sometime during the night. He got totally freaked, and dealt with his fear by attacking the second horse as soon as my uncle turned him loose in the paddock, who himself freaked out and charged straight for my uncle, knocking him head over teacup.
I see in this story a great parallel with our national response to, well, most everything.
MikeJ
@PurpleGirl:
That’s how I came to be born in Norfuck.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anne Laurie:
Can you explain that bit? I think there are a lot of us around who would claim that name and never have been conservatives.
stuckinred
Ha, that is funny. Just like they could join on the “buddy system” and serve with their pal!
licensed to kill time
@Anne Laurie: Sadly, Radlib reads to me like cudlip. Too much time at BJ, mebbe ;)
Omnes Omnibus
@stuckinred: PoTAYto, poTAHto.
stuckinred
@Omnes Omnibus: double :)
stuckinred
I’ll make Bob happy and vanish, keep up the fire!
Nicole
I want to bring up another excerpt (Pg 509):
This, more than anything, is the big thing I’ll take from this book. But, much as I agree with the point, in some cases, if not now, if not top-down, then when? If not for Loving v. Virginia, I think some states would still ban interracial marriage today.
Anne Laurie
@stuckinred: Yeah, but I want to start the BJ chapter of Radlibs Against MADlibs (the cheap-shortcut form of ‘political argument’ where today’s string of verified-but-limited vocabulary gets plugged randomly into the Daily Tirade Against Doubleplusungoodness) while there are still some of us old enough to remember the original MADlibs!
licensed to kill time
@Nicole: Excellent story and interpretation. The Three Stooges response, and just as painful to watch…
Nicole
@stuckinred: No! Don’t you dare! A) I like your posts and B) Who else will discuss Mildred Pierce with me, if things get slow?
Shawntos
I thought Muskie lost because of his addiction to Ibogaine? Surely Hunter Thompson wouldn’t lie?
Omnes Omnibus
@Nicole: I think many reforms need to be top down, but, if they are, the top down reformers cannot get too far ahead of the population or the backlash is inevitable. A bottom up reform can, I think, move faster; it’s just that, as you say, some reforms would never happen.
Anne Laurie
@Omnes Omnibus:
Unfortunately, it’s been tainted, possibly fatally, by people like David Broder and Mickey Kaus who claim they used to be liberals. I pretty much assume that anyone who uses this ‘used to be‘ meme has flagged themselves as both a troll and a gutless liar, but those gutless lying trolls have polluted the pool for low-information voters pretty effectively. Gresham’s Law, the political version.
Batocchio
@Nicole:
According to that recent poll, Mississippi Republicans want to do just that…
@Anne Laurie:
She sets up the gag @ 30 – then delivers the punchline @ 45! Seriously, anything that skewers false the false conventional wisdom would be great.
UmYeah
I own Muskie’s copy of Count Belisarius by Robert Graves.
Cool story bro etc…
stuckinred
@Nicole: The princess and I have been bustin ass in the garden all day and it’s movie time. We were not overwhelmed by the last 2 episodes and don’t show me the east coast beaches and tell me it’s SoCal!
Omnes Omnibus
@Anne Laurie: I say reclaim the damn word.
stuckinred
@efgoldman: typical
Nicole
@stuckinred: I was not impressed by the last two episodes, either and agree with you about the locations. Filmmaker gets a novel actually set in Hollywood, so he shoots it on the East Coast. Wha?
I think what the miniseries was trying to say is that to be a great artist, you have to be a total sociopath and parents just need to accept that. Or don’t be so hasty about getting divorced/incorporating. Or something.
Anne Laurie
@Nicole:
Yeah, what was it, like 46% of all Mississippians as of last week thought interracial marriage should be illegal?
And I’ll bet a good fraction of those folk have mixed-race relatives, that they know about & love, too.
The eternal political problem is doing the right thing, despite the inevitable backlash, versus… trimming. Trying to move things forward enough to make a difference without riling up the
bonehead troglodytesnatural conservatives. I think sometimes you just have to do the right thing and accept there’ll be hard consequences, but that’s why I’m a blogger & not a politician. Not everybody has it in them to be LBJ, much less Lincoln.Anne Laurie
@Shawntos:
Never trust an ibogaine dealer, son.
(I miss HST, but if the C-Plus Augustus hadn’t driven him to blow his brains out, the way things have gone down since the Great Wallstreet Bailout would’ve done it.)
nancydarling
@stuckinred: I have a friend who joined the Navy because he was about to be drafted. He figured it was a safer bet. He wound up on a gun boat on the Mekong River—not a good job.
Nicole
SInce I brought up Loving v. Virginia, I wanted to mention something I remember reading about it (anyone who knows the case better than I, feel free to correct me, but this is what I remember reading): Virginia’s ban was struck down because it specifically forbade white people from marrying outside their race. Had the law said no race could marry outside its own, there was a chance the Supreme Court might have upheld it, but because it specifically made marriage outside of their race for whites ONLY illegal, it was discriminatory… against whites.
EDIT: Though I just googled and see that the SC recognized in their decision anti-miscegenation laws existed for the purpose of continuing white supremacy. And that Alabama finally repealed their law against interracial marriage… in 2000 (though it had not been enforceable since Loving v. Virginia)
Mike in NC
MSM reaction:
1970s: Muskie crying = girly-man
2000s: Dubya & Boehner crying = compassionate conservatives
Screw ’em
Elia Isquire
Not to say that it was a good or less than absurdly ridiculous thing for Muskie to be torpedoed to a degree by the crying, but IIRC he comes off rather poorly in Nixonland, no? I remember reading it and feeling like if it wasn’t that moment, then at some other juncture a scandal or faux scandal would’ve undone him…
I only bring it up because sometimes people feel like if the crying game hadn’t happened to Muskie he would’ve gotten the nom and beaten Nixon, but I generally don’t think anyone was going to beat Tricky in ’72 — especially since he was juking the economy for all it was worth to hang on.
Omnes Omnibus
@Nicole: It is not that the law discriminated against white people; it is that the law by forbidding only white people to marry outside their race demonstrated that the goal of the law was maintaining white supremacy and was, therefore, unconstitutional.
Nicole
@Omnes Omnibus: Ah, got it. Thanks for the clarification.
stuckinred
@nancydarling: Drive by. . . Brown Water Navy, Dennis SGMM was one of them. Hairy shit driving those canals and rivers, I played it safe in a truck on the dirt roads.
Anne Laurie
@Elia Isquire: You’re right that Nixon was almost certainly going to win in 1972 — the only question was how big his ‘landslide’ margin would be. But, [spoiler alert] during the convention McGovern allowed himself to become the puppet of what Perlstein calls the Democratic Party’s “old bulls“, the labor leaders & city/state pols who were determined to keep their grip on the levers even if it meant shivving the entire rising generation of Democratic politicians. They managed to keep the women’s-rights, civil-rights, anti-war reps in their place, but that just cemented the perception of the Democratic Party as the last resort of Tammany Hall and ‘union thugs’. No idea whether Muskie would’ve been defter, but there’s a narrative arc that runs from Muskie getting knifed by the MSM “Boys on the Bus” to McGovern ceding the convention to the Old Guard to vast portions of the post-WWII generations simply giving up on conventional politics, even voting, as part of its (our) civic duty.
General Stuck
And Chuck Colson had his personal motto hanging on his office wall that read ‘grab them by the balls and their hearts and minds will follow” It was originally, I think his response to the various pacification plans thrown up in Vietnam, but also more or less described the Nixon gang of henchmen. These guys were the closest to the nasty asses Hitler had surrounding him as any president, maybe in our history. Bush and Rove were in comparison, big sissies.
As for 1972, it was a lost year to me. First getting and staying drunk and stoned until drafted and then caught in the whirlwind of Army training in those days. No computers back then or internet, and very little teevee or newspapers, not that I gave much of a fuck at the time. Other than watching it all spin around me, like a waking nightmare I was just stumbling through from one day to the next, hoping to survive it all with a dim hope that at some point it would make some sense to my young mind.
Nicole
So, how many chapters for next week?
Anne Laurie
Thanks everybody for participating. Same time, same place, next Sunday? “How to Survive the Debacle”, “Cruelest Month” and “Ping Pong” take us into the final arc, the Downfall of the Dark Lord…
Davis X. Machina
@efgoldman: Broder’s fingerprints were all over it, not that you heard that during his recent apotheosis, en route to the Big Panel in the Sky with Tim Russert™.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anne Laurie: “Ping Pong?” Will this be the chapter with Forrest Gump?
Tom
@efgoldman:
My cousin had the opposite experience when he was drafted into the (Finnish) army. His vision was borderline fail, so the Doc pulled him aside and gave him a choice
“If you want to stay with your friends and go through basic I’ll let you, but your eyesight is so bad you’ll spend your entire tour behind a desk, cause we’ll need to send two guys after you if you lose your glasses in the field. Or, if you want, I’ll mark ‘failed’ on your medical, and you’ll be on a train home tonight”
He went home
SBJules
@Omnes Omnibus:
David Broder reported that he did cry, but it was snowing really hard & it is said it was snow flakes. Here’s a link
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/frenzy/muskie.htm
Muskie was a good guy.
jake the snake
@Bill Murray:
A Douglas presidency might have delayed the Civil War (or in honor of DennisG, The War of Treason to Defend Slavery.
However, I think one was inevitable.
PanurgeATL
@licensed to kill time:
So what led liberals to do the same thing eventually?? (Because they did, after all. And then they wonder how they lost the plot.)
Chris
@MikeJ:
Yeah. Let the world be unfair to them just once – say, by their losing an election or two – and watch them stick their fingers in their ears, stomp their feet on the ground and bawl until they have their way.
Chris
@licensed to kill time:
Yep.
Funny thing is, most people (if not most conservatives) are perfectly happy living in a world without a draft, without fifteenth-century sexual laws, and without segregation. IOW, while they may hate hippies as a Pavlovian reflex, they’re quite happy to live in the world the 1960s created.
jake the snake
@Chris:
On a message board, I had a gliberatarian throw the world is not fair at me in one sentence and advocate the “Fair Tax” in the next.
hitchhiker
@stuckinred:
My brother Dan did this in 1968, when he was 18 years old. Instead of being drafted, he joined the US Army. He spent his tour of duty in Berchtesgaden, Germany, maintaining the officer’s golf course and life-guarding the officer’s swimming pool. Sometimes it did work.
Samnell
@Nicole: If not top-down, then generally nothing. There will always, inevitably be backlash. The right will never even think about letting stuff slide because it came up from the grassroots.
I don’t know why leftists are surprised by backlash, but I think it comes down to a reluctance to believe that many people really do do things just out of spite and pure malice. Better to push as hard and fast and extreme as we can manage, kick their fee-fee teeth in, and then treat the backlash as a law enforcement issue.
Chris
@Samnell:
I don’t think they’re surprised that there are people who do things out of spite and malice, but as you say, I think they’re surprised that so many people either vote out of spite, or happily go along with those who do.